"Richard Matthew Stallman (born March 16, 1953), often abbreviated "rms",[1] is an American software freedom activist, hacker,[2] and software developer. In September 1983, he launched the GNU Project[3] to create a free Unix-like operating system, and has been the project's lead architect and organizer.

Richard M. Stallman is an American software freedom activist and computer programmer. In September 1983, he launched the GNU Project to create a free Unix-like operating system; he initiated the Free Software Movement; in October 1985 he founded the Free Software Foundation.

"In 1984, Richard Stallman founded a social movement known as the free software movement. The free software movement fights for the ability to control our computers as a cooperative community (as opposed to being under the rule of software proprietors where users have only as much control over their computers as the proprietor allows).

"Richard Stallman is one of the founders of the Free Software Movement and lead developer of the GNU Operating System. His book is 'Free Software, Free Society'. I caught up with him by phone on December 1/05..."

"Not only is the free software movement a source of software and licenses, it is also a source of inspiration. In particular, free software has been cited by many in the nascent free culture movement as an explicit source of inspiration and point of departure.

"...The Free Software Foundation Europe, and the Royal Institute of Technology organized a lecture with Dr. Richard Stallman. Mainly the session was about the free software movement and the GNU/Linux operating system. Richard Stallman spoke about the goals and philosophy of the Free Software Movement, and the status and history of the GNU operating system, which in combination with the kernel Linux is now used by tens of millions of users world-wide..."

"Richard Stallman will speak about the Free Software Movement, which campaigns for freedom so that computer users can cooperate to control their own computing activities. The Free Software Movement developed the GNU operating system, often erroneously referred to as Linux, specifically to establish these freedoms."

“Open Source” advocate: «...I associate much more with the "Open Source" (also as Richard defines it) camp, and am open to the existence and use of proprietary software...» --

«'Public Software'? The so-called Public Software is a political project which aims to remove the Free Software main feature: the Freedom. It tries to put the people in the role of mere 'viewing public'.